All Nightmare Long
by Prospit Monarch
Summary: He's been convicted of murder and is now on the run. Will the past hold an answer to the mystery of such an unprovoked act? Only time will tell. T for violence, blood, and language.
1. 3 months later

5:00 P.M. 20 Miles South of Holoska.

After months of endless searching and prodding and picking, G.U.N. had finally found its' target. It had taken nearly three-fourths of the force to hunt down this one wanted criminal, but hopefully after tonight that work wouldn't be in vain. Even the best of the best had been selected to 'tag-and-bag' this wanted murderer - they were to make no mistakes. This was the final run to try and catch Public Enemy No. 1

"I tell ya', that little rat'll see me and wish he'd nevah been born!"

Flying over the eternally frozen landscape of Holoska was the best helicopter that G.U.N. could afford. Equip. with everything from rockets to the kitchen sink, this black beast was something to be feared - and it wasn't enough to take him down. It was what was inside this chopper that made the real difference: G.U.N.'s best.

Six specially selected men and women sat inside the sides of the craft: three on one side and three on the other. All figures, saves for two, were heavily covered in mesh, special fiber suits, weapons of all sizes, and even a couple grenades to finish it off. These "Armor Jockeys" as one big-mouth liked to call them; all had their helmets on, visors down to cover their faces. They were the best of the best: never failed a mission, never messed up, and never lost. That's why they had been sent in, unlike the other two,

"What 'e did too them kids, that's just wrong."

On the right side of the chopper, squished between two "Armor Jockeys", was a fridge with arms and legs. Clad in nothing more than khaki cargo pants, camo shirt, black sneakers, cigar hanging off his lip, and a machete strapped to his back, Steve McClure was nothing less than the best bounty hunter in the world: most wanted too.

Why was he helping a group that would have loved to see him dead? Well you see, after a few couple thousand dollars were exchanged and a few rules bent towards his favor, Steve was able to talk his way into getting his entire criminal file erased if he brought an end to one little problem.

What was this problem, you ask?

Well let's just say...it's a bit of a rat problem.

"Murderin' them like that, just sick." Continued the fridge as he pulled out his cigar and blew out a puff of smoke, nudging the Armor Jockey to his right. "You know what I'm sayin'? Just gonna ring 'is little neck when I see 'im."

The armored soldier next to him just absentmindedly nodded, wishing the man would just shut the hell up.

"Oh, please.." Chuckled a feminine voice directly across from the man.

"What was that, furry? You laughin' at me?" The man spat, blue eyes suddenly alight with the fierce fire he was so infamous for.

"You do realize he could take you down with his eyes shut, right?" A sly grin.

Steve snorted and pulled his cigar for another puff of smoke. "Don't know why they even let'cha come along.."

"Why?" The woman laughed at the man's perplexed and angry face. "The same reason they let you come along for this little trip."

"And the fact you know him..." Replied one of the four Armor Jockeys.

A shadow passed along Rouge's face at the words and she muttered a small reply about how that was true. They had worked together on some missions, more than she would openly admit, and she had grown to like the odd hero, but a job was a job. Even if she did have her doubts...

"Whatever." The bounty hunter replied gruffly as he snuffed out his cigar on the soldier's armored pants next to him. "Sonic'll dead by tonight, mark my words."

8:00 P.M. 15 Miles North of Holoska.

If there was ever a sight to behold it was that of Holoska's mountain range. Reaching high above the clouds and draped in a blanket of pure white snow with a blazing red aura of the setting sun behind them, these mountains were as picture-esque as could be. Even with the endless sea of white and green below the mountains it was peaceful. Yet even with things as beautiful and serene as this anxiety hung in the air like a shroud, choking everything it covered. All life was gone - out of sight and every little noise and breath echoed for miles, distorting any sense of range.

Even with conditions stacked against the G.U.N. team continued on towards the base of those rocky giants.

All or nothing, that's what their orders were. They either succeeded or died trying.

With this on all six members' minds they went forward, all weapons ready to fire at a moments notice. This went on for quite some time: two hours to be perfectly exact and for each second their movement was being tracked by every single military organization around the globe - the world was literally holding its' breath and praying for them to succeed.

Finally, after nearly giving up and calling it a day, one of the Armor clad soldiers spotted something a mile ahead and signaled for them to stop. Making a V with his index and middle finger the soldier pointed towards his eyes then at the blurry blue object in the distance. One by one the group nodded to show they saw and once more they moved forward, only now they were going no faster than gentle bray of the wind.

Their orders might have been all-or-nothing, but they had very specific instructions to also try and take him alive.

Every couple of feet passed the figure began to grow into solid shapes: A head, arms, legs, a torso. All of it curled into a ball on top of a low outcropping of rocks.

A few more feet.

A bloody red patch near the figure's neck. Was it dead?

A couple more feet.

No, not dead. it was a scarf that was barley being held together by its own string.

Halfway there.

The group halted again, this time on the pretense that Steve had seen it move. They quickly began to walk again.

Three-fourths of the way there.

The top of the blue hedgehog's head was facing them, his arms and legs hugging his stomach just beneath.

Now they were just feet away from a murderer.

Guns raised the Armored G.U.N. soldiers fanned out around the outcropping of rocks the hedgehog rested on, coming to a halt only when the furthest two soldiers hit the base of a cliff on the mountain. One of the soldiers, presumably the one in charge, raised his right hand, palm flat and facing the sleeping figure. Before he could even signal for the team to close in the Bounty Hunter snorted and walked forward, ignoring the fact that multiple voices were screaming in his ear to stop and all eyes were now on him.

"Things' asleep so shut it." He muttered to those around him or, more importantly, the microphone that was hooked up to Central Command.

Crunching steps echoed like gunshots as the man continued to confidently walk towards the rocks.

Crunch. Boom.

Crunch. Boom.

Crunch. Boom.

The world held its' breath.

All sounds froze.

The team wouldn't dare move a muscle.

But she realized it all too late.

A scream, high-pitched with the sound of sudden shock ran through the area like thunder, snapping all those frozen to their senses.

The next five seconds were a blur of shouts, curses, gunshots and a blue streak.

Rouge had reacted fast enough to be spared from the rage that was Sonic the Hedgehog, the others not being so lucky. Lying unconscious or too wounded to get up. the best of G.U.N. had been taken out in less time than it had taken for the Treasure Hunter to cry out, "No! He's not sleeping!"

Acting on sheer military training Rouge quickly spun to face the mountains and struck out with her arm. To her surprise it hit, but only the inside of Sonic's now closed fist. Without breaking a beat the bat swung her other arm at the hedgehog, it ending up just as her other arm. Mind calculating on what to do next, Rouge agreed upon sweeping her foot underneath Sonic's legs to trip him, thus disarming him, and then quickly placing her boot on his neck.

The plan played out perfectly: the tripped Sonic let out a cry of surprise, as well as releasing Rouge's arms, and fell to the ground with a thud. What didn't play out right was the way Sonic reacted to all of it - he rolled out of the way, jumped to his feet before the bat even knew what had happened and darted to the top of the outcropping of rocks he was just waiting on.

Both Mobians eyes locked with each others in a deathly glare that said more than words could have ever done - neither of them meant any harm to one another.

Exhausted from the small skirmish Sonic didn't even remotely question if his former friend would attack or not, no matter what her eyes said. He just sighed. A sigh so full of weariness it made the hedgehog seem years older.

"Well you found me, now what?"

That was the second thing she had noticed that was so different about the once famed hero - his voice had lost its happy, albeit annoying, tone. It was no more than a weary shell of its former self. Without really knowing why, that change had shook Rouge harder than the scars he was no sporting.

And he noticed this.

"What? These?" Sonic sadly motioned to the two scars on his body: one half-moon scar on his right forearm and two jagged cuts down the right side of his face and over his eye. "These are nothing. Souvenirs of Amy and Knuckles."

An uneasy silence followed. Even the speaker in Rouge's ear was silent.

"You not going to talk to me either? Fine." Sonic snorted in disgust. "And I thought you were smarter than them."

More silence.

"Well? You gonna lock me up? Kill me for what I did? Or are you just going to stand there?"

Even though she was probably breaking fifty obscure laws, Rouge spoke up, her voice slow and deliberate. "I know you didn't mean to kill him."

"Oh, really?" Sonic rolled his eyes at the bat. "You really believe I didn't kill him? "

"Yes."

"Likely story."

Beginning to get slightly annoyed, although she perfectly understood why Sonic was so paranoid, Rouge held up her hands, palms out towards the hedgehog.

"I had three different ways I could have taken you down right now, but I didn't. Now do you trust me?"

"No." Not even a smile - he was being dead serious. "Besides, what could you do to help me? Let me escape? No matter where you put me I could always escape and just keep on avoiding you. "

He had a point. Prison Island had failed to keep him under lock and key three times now, as well as numerous small prisons - Sonic couldn't be kept behind bars, he would just break out again and again. Everyone knew this and everyone knew what they had to do to stop him, even if nobody ever spoke those words aloud.

Sonic easily read the doubt on the bat's face: he'd gotten quite good at reading people since on the run. "Exactly, there is nothing you can do."

"We could prove that you didn't do it - prove that you didn't kill Tails."

Sonic visibly flinched at the name and cast his eyes down at the blood stained gloves he still wore. They were still on even months after, he still had them on - a sick reminder as to what he had supposedly done.

"Look." Rouge began slowly, hoping Sonic would up and run like he always did when someone brought up the murder of the two-tailed fox. "What happened that day? Maybe there is something or someone you saw or.."

"I don't remember. I told the police when they first found me and...and him, I don't remember a thing. Nothing at all. Only..Only.." Sonic began to shake slightly as a few tears rolled of his muzzle and onto the ground. "I only remember his eyes as he looked at me. Th-They were scared of me, like I was some sort of demon! And as I held him there while he was dying I-I believed them, Rouge. I don't know what happened but I know I did it, I killed T-Tails."

A sudden loud crackling in the bat's ear made her jump and turn away from the now freely crying Sonic as a voice came in blaring over her ear bud. The man was rambling on and on about something of a prison break - which were backed up by loud sirens hollering in the background- and something to do with a puppet?

"Repeat that." Rouge replied as silence filled the base of the mountain.

"This is a Code Omega-Red. Your team is to return at once. Doctor Robotnik has escaped from Prison Island and he left a message saying he's going to have his 'puppet' kill more people. Leave and return to the chopper now. Do you copy? Rouge? Do you copy?"

Crunch. Boom.

Crunch. Boom.

Crunch. Boom.

A loud snarl erupted in the silence, followed by a scream of the dying as a blue hedgehog with murder in his eyes leapt for the kill.


	2. 1 Month later

**Based on the song _Renegade_ by Styx**

* * *

><p>A thunderous clap rolled through the area as rain poured down without end, drenching everyone and everything. Another loud boom roared from the clouds and lightening flashed, bringing light to the sleepy town below. This small community, home to no more than perhaps three-thousand residence, continued on through the night, ignoring the thunderous booms, drenching rain, and constant police supervision.<p>

Now rain wasn't something foreign to this area - why they had more water fall on them than most other places around the world - but the police? They were something fairly new and not all-together welcomed. While coming unannounced into town to protect just one person was a bit nerracking, try having cops at every entrance and exit, every street corner and alley - even a curfew was put into place. Needless to say the townsfolk were less than pleased, especially since most of them deemed it unecessary.

"It was a fluke! He didn't do a thing!"

"It's all that Eggman's fault - I can just feel it."

"Idoit cops, they're going after the wrong guy."

To just give you a brief, and censored, versoin of how most felt.

Those in town weren't the only ones' affected either. How do you think it felt to try and see someone that was your friend and having all ways to them blocked from you? Well let me tell you something; it was irritating. All he wanted to do was stop by and let her know he was fine and soon everything would be figured out. But no, they had to have her house locked down tight too.

A flash of light followed by a roar made the drenched figure shiver as he crouched, unnoticed, by the side of a dull pink house. He pulled the makeshift hood down over his face to cut out the circling blue and red lights. If the time was what he thought it would be then...yes, they were leaving. Time to move.

As the cop car slowly pulled away from the front of the house to the back a hooded figure darted through the rain, and out of the saftey of an overgrown bush, to the shadow of the homes' chimney. As the blue and red eyes slowly disappeared so did the hedgehog's sense of doubt. Maybe ihe/i had been close with her and maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't believe him...but he had to try.

iAnd the thunder rolls and the lightening strikes. Another love grows cold on a sleepless ni-ight./i

Shaking the odd lyrics from his head, Sonic quickly peaked his head out from the chimneys shadow - everything was jsut as quiet as it should be - and made a dash for the window. Without even skipping a beat he tested the bottom of the darkened window to see if it opened and let out a sigh of relief when it moved slightly up. In one swift move he lifted the window open to its fullest height and then jumped into the house itself.

With a loud isqueltch/i he landed, turned around, and then quickly shut the window again before allowing himself to relax and take in the home he had been in multiple times before.

The fireplace was crackling with life to his right, casting dancing shadows upon everything in the small living area. Two chairs were placed in front of the fire, a small table in between the two with glasses upon it, and a couch was pushed against the far left wall, leaving a space roughly four feet in length for a rug to cover that carpeted floor.

Same as always.

With the shadow of a smile upon his face, Sonic pulled down his soaked hood and shook his quils, never even noticing the figure in the doorway.

With a free hand the hedgehog ruffled his still soaked quils and gave a small chuckle. It had taken some time, and a bit of planning actually, to be able to map out a quick way to the house without being noticed - by cops or citizens. He'd planned on just running straight in but the last thing he really needed was cops knocking at the door saying they saw a blue streak coming this way. Working with the changing schedules of police was a plan, albeit a very boring one, but a plan nonetheless - the rain just happened to help.

The words 'I should have made plans more often' slowly died on Sonic's lips as he finally noticed the figure in the door. The two silently stared at eachother for what seemed like a milennia before the later broke it. Expecting an attack of some sorts Sonic put up his hands to block the flying hamemr that would not appear until later. A soft 'oof' escaped the blue hero as Amy latched her arms around his body.

For a second they both stood there - one bewildered and the other just happy to see the first alive - when a click sounded off and artifical light filled the room. Eyes snapped shut and a grin now ever present on his face, Sonic couldn't help but laugh.

"What are you doing here?"

The red echidna folded his arms and looked sourly at the blue hedgehog, eventhough he too was glad to see Sonic alive. "Amy asked me to come here."

"I-I did." Came the sniffle as Amy Rose finally pulled her arms off Sonic. "I asked him to come to see if we could figure out something to do."

"Really?" Replied the blue hedgehog with an admiring smile to both of them. "Come up with anything?"

Both Knuckles and Amy glanced at eachother before looking away: the echidna shrugging while Amy just sighed.

"We were waiting for you, actually."

"Wait, you knew I was coming? How?"

This time is was Knuckles to crack a smirk, "I've been here for a week."

There was an uneasy pause as thunder once again rolled through the sky.

"Awh, Knux. I didn't know you cared about me that much! I might get teary." Sonic sniffed and whipped away a fake tear before returning to his original smile.

Again the odd silence broken with loud roars form the clouds.

i..and the lightening strikes, another lvoes grows cold on a sleepless ni-ight. As the storms blows o-on out of control. /i

"So.." Began Amy rather awkwardly as she looekd Sonic over, worry present in her eyes as she did.

"You want to know what happened, huh?" Sonic replied to keep the omnipresent silence away.

The two nodded, almost eager to hear what had transpired only weeks earlier.

"Well," A sigh, "you're out of luck. I can't remember a thing from that day. Only after he...I.."

With a look of concern etched across her face, Amy lightly patted Sonic on the shoulder and motioned with her other hand towards the chairs. "Here, why don't you sit. You look exhausted and I have so-"

A flash of light.

A stabbing pain in his back.

No thunderous clap followed.

Blinking away something warm and sticky that ran down the side of his face and trying to pull away the hands gripepd tightly across his throat, Sonic barely had anytime to figure out what had changed in the blink of an eye before the hands crushed his airway further. With a strangled gasp the hedgehog tried pulling away the hands when a stinging pain flared to life on his right forearm. Weakly he noticed the blood rushing down that arm from a deep crescent shaped gash that had not been there a second earlier.

An angry growl emitted from Knuckles as he raised the blue hedgehog higher on the wall, hands still tightly wrapped around Sonic's throat. Behind him stood Amy, her hammer raised high above her head as he glared at the hedgehog as well, only she had tears running down her cheeks.

The room had been torn to shreds; chairs smashed, table in pieces with the glass cups shattered across the carpet, and the couch had blood flecked all over its' surface.

"I knew we shouldn't have trusted you!" Roared Knuckles as he thrust Sonic against the wall despite the deep cuts across both of his arms. "I knew you were going to crack! It was just a matter of time before you did!"

Hearing but not really understanding the words as life was slowly being taken away, Sonic, desperate for some freedom, kicked out his foot and hit the echidna square in the jaw.

With a grunt Knuckles flew back a foot before landing on his back, a curse escaping his lips as he sat up to see that he had let Sonic go, even if all the hedgehog was doing was gasping for air on his knees.

Before he could even climb to his feet a heavy foot pressed Sonic back down to the ground, but even right as Amy was about to smack him unconscious he went and grabbed her ankle and-

A bright flash of light and the thunderous clap was cut in half.

It took a second for it to click but when it did Sonic took a step backwards. He was standing next to the window again and facing the room, only it had been trashed far more than last time and all lights had gone out. Save for the trotting of rain on the window the room was deathly silent. Fear gripped the hedgehog as he hoped, prayed, for them to be alive. Oh, pelase, let them be alive! Don't let it happen again!

The answer came as blue and red light suddenly flared to life outside the home, lighting up the house in quick intervals.

Slumped unconscious underneath a hole in the wall was Amy, her hammer hanging limply from her hand as blood slowly dripped from her forehead onto the handle. A shakey gasp escaped Sonic's lips as he noticed how her right leg was twisted to an impossible angle.

"Leave."

Knuckles lurched forward, hands trying desperately to hold the blood back from leaking all over his stomach thanks to a deep scratch across his side, and rumbled a growl; something Sonic had never heard of in his life.

"Look Knux I-"

"NOW!"

A look of unease crossed Sonic's face as he backed away from the wounded echidna.

"I'll fix this - I swear."

And with that Sonic turned and exited teh way he had entered. His feet hardly touched the soaking wet grass before he took off into the night, mind reeling at what just happened.

Knuckles, he..

Dear Mobius.

That growl...

it was the sound of a cornered animal.

One that feared for its' life.


End file.
